Momentum

The Momentum Concept Builder is comprised of a bank of 43 questions that are delivered to the learner across three different activities. Each of the three activities has a slightly different emphasis. The first activity - What's Happening With Momentum? - challenges learners to use the momentum concept to identify whether or not the momentum of an object is increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant. The second activity - Momentum Ranking Tasks - assesses the learner's ability to rank the momentum of three different objects when given mass and velocity information about the  objects. The third activity - Getting Direction on Momentum - challenges students to determine the direction of the momentum. Questions are grouped with questions in the same group being very similar. If a learner misses a question within Question Group 1, then another question within the same group will be presented to the learner at a later time.

The three activities in this Concept Builder are summarized as follows:
 

• What's Happening With Momentum?: Question Groups 1-4
• Momentum Ranking Tasks: Question Groups 5-8
• Getting Direction on Momentum: Question Groups 9-12

The questions and images used in this Concept Builder are shown below. Teachers are encouraged to view the questions in order to judge which activity is most appropriate for their classes. 

The Physics Classroom grants teachers and other users the right to print these questions for private use. Users are also granted the right to copy the text and modify it for their own use. However, this document should not be uploaded to other servers for distribution to and/or display by others. The Physics Classroom website should remain the only website or server from which this document is distributed or displayed. We also provide a PDF that teachers can use under the same conditions. We have included a link to the PDF near the bottom of this page.

 

 
Activity 1: What's Happening With Momentum?
Question Group 1:
Question 1:
A car is moving eastward and speeding up. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant


Question 2:
A car is moving westward and speeding up. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 3:
A car is moving northward and speeding up. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 4:
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​

 
Question Group 2:
Question 5:
A car is moving eastward and slowing down. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 6:
A car is moving westward and slowing down. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 7:
A car is moving northward and slowing down. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 8:
A car is moving southward and slowing down. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
 
 
 
Question Group 3:
Question 9:
A truck is moving eastward at a constant speed. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 10:
A truck is moving westward at a constant speed. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 11:
A truck is moving northward at a constant speed. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​ 
Question 12:
A truck is moving southward at a constant speed. The momentum of the car is ______.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
 

 
Question Group 4:
Question 13:
If the speed of a constant-mass object is increasing, then the momentum of the object is _____.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 14:
If the speed of a constant-mass object is decreasing, then the momentum of the object is _____.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​
Question 15:
If the speed of a constant-mass object is remaining constant, then the momentum of the object is _____.
a.  increasing
b.  decreasing
c.  remaining constant

​

 
 
 
 
Activity 2: Momentum Ranking Tasks
Question Group 5:
Question 16:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 17:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.  

 
Question 18:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.  

 
 
 

 
Question Group 6:
Question 19:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 20:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 21:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
 
 
 
Question Group 7:
Question 22:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 23:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 24:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
 
 
Question Group 8:
Question 25:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 26:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.
 
 
Question 27:
The mass and velocity of three objects are shown below. The arrow represents the direction of the velocity. Rank these three objects in terms of their momentum.  

 
 
 
 
 
Activity 3: Getting Some Direction on Momentum
Question Group 9:
Question 28:
A car is moving eastward and speeding up. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 29:
A car is moving westward and speeding up. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 30:
A truck is moving eastward and speeding up. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 31:
A truck is moving westward and speeding up. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
 
 
 
 
Question Group 10:
Question 32:
A car is moving eastward and slowing down. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 33:
A car is moving westward and slowing down. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 34:
A truck is moving eastward and slowing down. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 35:
A truck is moving westward and slowing down. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
 
 
 
Question Group 11:
Question 36:
A car is moving eastward with a constant speed. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 37:
A car is moving westward with a constant speed. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 38:
A truck is moving eastward with a constant speed. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 39:
A truck is moving westward with a constant speed. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
 
 
 
Question Group 12:
Question 40:
A car is slowing down. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 41:
A car is speeding up. The direction of the car's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell

 
Question 42:
A truck is slowing down. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
​c.  impossible to tell


Question 43:
A truck is speeding up. The direction of the truck's momentum vector is ______.
a.  east
b.  west
c.  impossible to tell